Privacy Policy

Dogwood is committed to maintaining your trust and confidence. We believe our policies strike an appropriate balance between your desire as a concerned citizen to be informed about important matters affecting your future and your desire not to be swamped with useless, annoying requests. The following privacy policy is designed to protect personal information you provide on our website. Please take the time to read this policy. Your right to privacy is very important to us.

Collecting Personal Information

The purpose of our website is to educate, inform and connect with the public about issues relating to Dogwood’s goal of bringing together everyday British Columbians to reclaim decision-making power over their air, land and water, now and for future generations. When you visit this site and access information, you are anonymous. We do not require you to provide personal information to view it.

However, when you donate to us,subscribe, or take an online action we will ask for additional information. We do this to keep in touch with you through newsletters or e-mail and provide you with services that may be valuable to you. We may e-mail, phone or mail you to solicit donations.

We collect, store, and use the personal data relating to any transactions carried out between you and Dogwood, such as signing a campaign petition, making a donation, subscribing to our website services, e-mail notifications and/or newsletters; and any other information that you choose to send to us.

Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL)

Dogwood complies with CASL and we are committed to making sure you only get the email communications that you want from us. You may stop receiving e-mail at any time by unsubscribing. Alternatively, you can call 250-370-9930 x30 or e-mail info@dogwoodbc.ca.

Dogwood does not send any Commercial Electronic Messages as defined by CASL, but we take all steps to ensure that we have your consent to send you electronic communications such as e-mails and text messages.

For the purposes of this policy we define Commercial Electronic Messages (CEM) to be electronic messages that have as one of their purposes an encouragement to participate in a commercial activity, including messages that include:

offers to purchase, sell, barter or lease a product, goods, a service, or land;

offers to provide a business, investment or gaming opportunity;

advertises or promotes anything referred to in paragraph (a) or (b); or

promotes a person, including the public image of a person, as being a person who does anything referred to in any of paragraphs (1) to (2), or who intends to do so.*

Since Dogwood does not send CEMs we are exempt from the sections of CASL [paragraph 6(1)(a)] that require implied or express consent to be obtained from recipients of Commercial Electronic Messages.

However, because we are committed to protecting your privacy and avoiding unwanted e-mail and text messages we have the following policy in place to provide additional clarity to electronic message subscribers. All web forms on Dogwood’s websites, social media presences as well as printed materials have in the past and continue to contain express consent statements about the nature of communications a subscriber will expect to receive by entering their e-mail address into one of our forms or websites and how they can terminate their subscription.

In addition to the above Dogwood has and continues to always clearly identify itself as the sender of any of its electronic messages and provides a clear opt out link in the footer of each message.**

Website “Cookies”

Dogwood’s websites may use “cookies” to help personalize your online experience. They are widely used by most websites, to help simplify your experience. The purpose of a cookie is to tell the web server that you have returned to a specific page, so you do not need to re-enter your personal information. By default, most browsers accept cookies, but you have the ability to decline them by adjusting your browser settings.

Data Tracking

In order to better serve our supporters, in addition to collecting the information listed above, we also use cookies and other tools such as Google Analytics to analyse web activity. These services provide us with statistical data that does not identify any individual. We may also use embedded images in e-mails to track open rates for our mailings, so that we can tell which mailings appeal most to Dogwood supporters. We also may collect IP addresses or other data about visits to our website to better understand where our traffic is coming from, how our services are being accessed.

URLs contained in e-mails may contain an ID that enables us to correctly identify the person who takes an action using a web page. We use these URLs to simplify the process of signing petitions and filling out surveys. We may occasionally present a shortened URL that references a longer URL which contains an ID —we do this to simplify the display, to prevent links from becoming broken when copied, and to ensure compatibility with e-mail programs which do not handle long URLs. When a shortened URL is displayed in an e-mail, you will see the full URL in the browser’s address bar when you access the page.

Use of Information:

E-mail addresses

Dogwood never trades or sells e-mail addresses. We use them only to provide you with information. You may stop receiving e-mail at any time by unsubscribing. Alternatively, you can call 250-370-9930 x30 or email info@dogwoodbc.ca.

Donation information

Postal addresses of individuals who donate less than $250 per year may be made available to like-minded organizations doing good work unless you request otherwise. This process of trading information with other organizations is common and an important way for us to solicit new members and help fund our work. You may choose not to share this information. To do so, please leave a message with your postal code and surname clearly spelled out at 250-370-9930 x30 or e-mail alisha@dogwoodbc.ca. E-mail addresses of financial supporters are not traded.

Newsletters and Mailings

If you wish to stop receiving our newsletters or mailings, please call Alisha Brown at 250-370-9930 x30 or email alisha@dogwoodbc.ca. Postal addresses of subscribers to our newsletters may be traded with like-minded organizations as above.

Policy Updates and Changes

Because of the fast-changing nature of the online medium and the world around us, Dogwood may change this policy from time to time. Changes may occur without warning and they will be reflected on this page. Please note that Dogwood’s Privacy Policy can be superseded by applicable provincial or federal regulation or legislation and in these cases we have no other option but to comply.

Links

To provide users with more information on various issues, we often provide links to third-party websites. However, we do not control those websites or necessarily endorse their viewpoints.

Comments

Your privacy is important to us. We welcome comments and questions about our policy. Please contact our Privacy Officer, Matt Takach at mtakach@dogwoodbc.ca or 250-370-9930 x21.